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Decisive lead generation statistics about inbound marketing

Powerful lead generation statistics that endorse inbound marketing

There are many ways to generate leads, some better than others. Buying lists of names and contact details doesn’t constitute a lead generation tactic that’s going to result in many conversions. We might be a little biased, but lead generation through inbound marketing is a far more reliable (not to mention, ethical) approach that guarantees you ROI: more revenue and lower cost per lead. In this blog, we’re going to take a look at some statistics that prove that the inbound approach to lead generation really is the most sensible option for your business, whatever your industry.

A lead is someone who has shown genuine interest in your brand or product

Before we get onto the data, let’s define what a lead is in an inbound marketing context. A lead is someone who has shown interest in your brand or products – by signing up for a quote or free trial, completing a survey or by interacting with you on social media, for example. A lead is not someone whose contact details you’ve bought so that you can surprise them with a cold-call or email. Lead generation in inbound marketing is about waiting for the customer to make the first move.

A visitor who has made the first move, and who is now a lead, is far more likely to buy something because they’ve shown genuine interest in your business. That said, for the inbound approach to lead generation to work, your brand needs to have an incredible website with content relevant to your target audience and plenty of calls to action to encourage your site visitors to make that first move.

Inbound marketing yields more leads than outbound marketing, and is more cost effective per lead too

We’ve mentioned in a previous blog that inbound marketing is more cost effective than traditional marketing, though a dose of patience is required. Oracle’s marketing automation division, Eloqua, has found that if you dedicate five months to consistent inbound marketing tactics, your cost per lead will decrease by 80%. That inbound is the more cost effective way to generate leads is backed up by data from HubSpot, quoted on the Blitz blog, which suggests that outbound marketing leads cost 39% more than inbound leads. The proof that lead generation through inbound marketing works is in the pudding: further data appearing in HubSpot’s State of Inbound report 2014 shows that 50% of marketers say inbound marketing generates the majority of their leads, which is twice the number of marketers who cite outbound as their main source of leads.

And if you wanted yet another stat showing that inbound marketing is more effective than outbound marketing at generating leads, Demand Metric’s infographic shows that content marketing – a component of an inbound strategy – generates three times the number of leads than traditional marketing and costs 62% less.

Lead nurturing is another important ingredient to increasing revenue

After lead generation, lead nurturing is the next step in an inbound marketing strategy. Nurturing your leads involves coaxing them down the sales funnel with content, and later sales calls, until they’re ready to buy – and this pays off too, with nurtured leads spending 47% more than leads who haven’t been nurtured, according to the Annuitas Group.

The inbound approach also ensures that your leads have a higher chance of converting

And after lead nurturing comes conversion – turning your leads into customers. Gartner, quoted on Impact’s blog, has found that when inbound marketing is executed properly, it’s 10 times more effective at converting leads than outbound marketing. Not only that, HubSpot have found that inbound marketing can even double the average website conversion rate from 6% to 12%.

Generating high quality leads is one of the biggest challenges faced by B2B business, with lack of staff, constrained budgets and too little time being major obstructions to doing so. Marketing automation, as part of inbound marketing, has the power to generate high quality leads without the need to hire more staff, increase your budget or find more hours in the day. If you’d like to find out more about how an inbound marketing strategy is implemented and how it can grow your business, download our guide: